Dancing With Principle: Hanya Holm in Colorado, 19411983
Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2001.
Index, sources, notes, appendixes, photos. xii + 190 pages.
6 x 9 inches. $45.00 hardcover; $17.50 softcover.
We all know Claudia Gitelman as an immaculate scholar, and her book, Dancing With Principle, Hanya Holm in Colorado, 1941-1983, proves us right. However, along with facts she gives us a lot of reminescent fun. Along with where, how, why, what, and when, she tells about much about who, and most of them we all know.
The years she covers are the years of the coming of age of American Modern Dance, reminding us of the aesthetic debt we owe to Hanya. There are so many hidden goodies regarding movement and aesthetic philosophy that I became reacquainted the energy, drive and purpose that I knew as Hanya. Ruth Grauert
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Reviews
Dancing With Principle: Hanya Holm in Colorado, 19411983
Review by Modupe Labode, Colorado Historical Society
For forty-three years, Hanya Holm, a central figure in modern
dance, led a summer school at Colorado College in Colorado
Springs. This school not only enhanced the artistic reputation of the
city but also was an important center for dance education in the
United States. The book's author spent her first summer at Colorado
College in 1959; Claudia Gitelman continued to be associated with
Holm until the dancer's death in 1992.
Although Hanya Holm's name may not be familiar to the casual
follower of modern dance, dance historians consider her to be one
of the big four modern dance innovators. (Martha Graham, Doris
Humphrey, and Charles Wiedman round out the quartet.) Most people
in the United States became familiar with Holm's work through her
choreography for several Broadway musicals, including Kiss Me, Kate
and My Fair Lady. Holm also directed the New York premiere of The
Ballad of Baby Doe.
Holm, née Johanna Kuntze, was born in Germany in 1898. She
studied dance with Mary Wigman, and in 1931 Holm moved to New
York City to establish a school to teach her mentor's technique. With
Hitler's ascent to power, Americans became suspicious of a school
teaching dance techniques developed in Germany. Holm, with Wigman's
assent, changed the name of the school to the Hanya Holm
Studio. The dancer thus began a career in the United States and
became well known as a choreographer and teacher.
Gitelman carefully analyzes Holm's constantly changing relationships
with both Colorado College and her students during the
four decades of summer schools. The author also provides a balanced
assessment of the end of Holm's relationship with Colorado
College in 1983. Gitelman is herself a choreographer and a professor
emerita at Rutgers University and provides great insight into Holm's
career as a teacher. The author conducted a wide variety of interviews
with people associated with Holm at different stages of her career
and has used these interviews to good effect.
Gitelman makes it clear that she is not writing a biography; rather
she focuses on Holm in Colorado Springs, an aspect of Holm's career
that has been neglected. However, the author seems to have assumed
that the readers have some background in dance, either as
performers, students, teachers, or dedicated fans. Given these parameters,
a reader who is not familiar with the world of modern dance
(such as this reader) is not provided with the necessary context to
fully appreciate Holm's work. For example, a brief sketch of Holm's life
in Germany would have been helpful. It is also difficult to keep track of
what Holm was doing when she was away from Colorado Springs.
Scholars of modern dance will appreciate this book. Gitelman
provides two appendixes detailing the students enrolled at the dance
program and the programs of the Colorado College summer dance
concerts. This book also contributes to the study of Colorado Springs
as a center for the arts.
Modupe Labode, chief historian for the Colorado Historical Society, formerly taught
history at Iowa State University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Oxford University
and has written articles on missionaries in southern Africa.
Published online August 2002
COLORADO BOOK REVIEW CENTER
www.coloradohistory.org/publications/publications.htm
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